For over a decade now if you wanted a console you were basically forced to pick up a console from Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony. Sure, if you wanted to hook up a PC to your TV and make it work like a console you could do that, but that was an option only available to the most hardcore and driven of gamers. After all, hooking a PC up to a TV would require quite a bit of hardware and tinkering just to make it look halfway decent on such a screen!

Valve is looking to change all that. We’re already familiar with their Big Screen Mode that they just released in Steam last month, and now it looks like Valve’s so-called “Steam Box” will be announced sometime later this year, at either GDC or E3. This won’t be some sort of update to Steam, but rather it’s essentially going to be a console that will hook up to your TV, but is basically just like a regular PC in that developers can develop for regular PC hardware and not a proprietary technology like the PS3’s Cell Processor for example.

According to Valve engineer Ben Krasnow, the “Steam Box” will also be running on a version of Linux as well, and not Windows. This isn’t too surprising given the fact that many Valve employees have expressed disdain at Windows 8, and also the fact that Linux in general has free licensing available which will help drive down the price and increase any potential profit margin. I’m not going to lie, even if the “Steam Box” ends up being a flop or something, I’m glad to see that at least somebody is trying something new for once!